Any tips for traveling on a plane with a 5 month old? What to take with on plane and in luggage? What can you gate check/pack?
What about giving medicine of sorts to help them sleep or care for their ears? Other prep to consider?
4 Answers
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This suggestion applies to all children you fly with who can't sit still and be quiet for the whole fight.
Take treats (I get snicker bars!) to offer the passengers around you, and ear plugs. When you first get on the plane, introduce yourself to all the people sitting immediately around you and apologize in advance for any ruckus or seat kicking your child inflict up on them. This puts people in a good frame of mind toward you right off the bat, and they will not get angry or upset with you. In fact I had one woman even offer to help me entertain my son one while I went to the bathroom by myself! If there's screaming from the pressure on take off or landing, hand out the ear plugs. Other passengers are really understanding and kind if you make these kinds of gestures. They can be the opposite if you don't.
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The best advice I got was to make sure they have something to drink as the plane ascends and descends - that will protect their ears (if they're not asleep), and food just generally makes kids (and all of us) jolly.
A carrier or wrap is a nice way to hold them on the plane so you're arms don't get tired and they can sleep, but baby must be in a car seat or in your lap without a wrap/carrier for take off or landing. (And some say the safest way for a baby to travel is in their airplane-approved (check the label on the seat) carseat, no matter what the age - for heavy turbulence as much as a crash.) If you choose not to buy a seat for the baby, you can still bring a carseat in case a nearby seat is free, and gate check it if one is not available. You can gate check strollers as well.
(If you don't buy a seat for your infant, make sure to call the airline and tell them you have a lap-infant - the baby will need their own ticket or a mention on your ticket to get through security - and I've never seen a way to indicate this when booking online.)
You can get most baby-related liquids through security these days - we bring water, and they just test it, and a couple of bottles pre-filled with the right amount of formula. Or, with our second, I was more comfortable nursing in public and so did that.
Many airlines will sit you in the back of the plane (or you can ask to be there) and there are a few perks to this: 1) louder engine noise => better-sleeping baby, 2) fewer people watching you, 3) closer to bathroom, 4) more likely to have other babies nearby - which makes for nice, helpful adults to be around :) (BTW, not all planes have a changing table in the bathroom, weekday commuter flights are especially suspect as we happily learned last year, if you care, check it out before you pick your flight.)
We never did medicine, though I know some do. At 5 mos, our kids mostly slept and ate, and a storybook or low song or toy or two did the trick for the remainder. It gets a little more challenging when they're mobile, but you'll get to that when you come to it :)
Good luck!
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Random tips:
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only pack as much diapers as you need for the trip and purchase the remainder at your destination. They take up too much space otherwise.
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bring a new toy and/or book on the plane. The novelty of something new will last longer than with a toy or book your child is already familiar with.
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if your child has a lovey, then bring it. For our children, they have loveys that never leave the home (for fear of losing them) as well as "travel" loveys that go everywhere with them. During naptime on the plane, it's comforting for them to hold and snuggle.
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snacks/candy/whatever it takes. I'll even let my child drink soda (which is a RARE treat). Almost anything goes on the plane for us.
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For an older child, bring a laptop or some portable device packed with videos.
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If you choose to medicate your child, do a trial run at home first! For some children, benadryl actually has the opposite effect, instead of drowsiness, they become hyper - not something you would want to discover on the plane.
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We flew with a 3 month old and again with a 6 month old. This pre-mobile stage is really not so bad for travel!
- having something to drink on the way up or down is a good strategy. I had pumped milk into a bottle, so we had that handy. A small amount of water would also work - at one point i diluted the milk a little to make it last long enough (sometimes that taxiing takes forever and then you have to wait until actual takeoff)
- I have heard that a bit of hot water soaked into a napkin at the bottom of a paper or styrofoam cup, and those cups held to ears help in equalizing the pressure and managing the discomfort. Ours never complained with any takeoffs or landings.
- some kind of infant carrier or wrap can be great for both getting around the airport and settling them in the plane. On one flight we got a business class upgrade, and that was fabulous - our little one was all about pulling to standing and we had plenty of space to have her jump up and down on our laps, and feed her. Plain nursing was easier in terms of feeding, but if you keep a jar of food and a spoon and some paper towels and a bib handy, jar food feeding is not bad either.
- I have found that if I am in the window seat and have someone familiar next to me, I generally was comfortable pumping with a manual pump under the cover of a blanket. I realise this may not be you, but - I was glad I had my manual Medela pump with me. This is how I had milk in the bottle for the landing of a 10 hr flight. Breastmilk is considered "liquid medication" by flight security officials and you can take as much of it with you as you want and have (whether or not you have a baby with you).
- bring both something familiar (like a sleep toy or blanket) as well as something novel. I never thought that Mortimer the Moose would take prime position in my carry-on luggage, but it did. Ditto several pacifiers (even with my lax hygiene standards, there were times when boiling water was required before taking THAT pacifier back into use).
- if you are travelling far and you get a chance to put your baby into those bassinets they provide, you'll be glad you brought some kind of a thin blanket with you. Those bassinets can get a bit grungy, and it's nicer to use your own blanket under the baby. On our long haul flights at 3 mos we bought her her own ticket, so we had both the car seat between us AND the bassinet option. It was fabulous.
- if you have to choose between putting your own bag into the overhead bin or the baby's bag, put your own bag. Make sure bag contains the things you'd expect to need on a trip, but especially: wipes, little trash bags, a full change of clothes, or two (think: what if your bags go missing! ours once were gone for a week), pacifiers if you use them, a medicine bag including teeting remedies, tylenol and what not, and snacks for you. Also - if it's nice where you arrive, sunhat and sunscreen or if it is cold, warm outdoor clothes as well.
one more thing on gate checking: most places when we travelled with a Graco snugride infant car seat and snap in stroller attachment, we were able to take the car seat on the flight (because they were not full) and gate check the stroller. Otherwise both were gate checkable. It's a pain to carry the car seat around without the stroller base. We never travelled with the car seat base, because the car seat can be attached even without the base.
- katja, Jan 23, 2010